Thursday, September 09, 2010

Earlier this year, Microsoft updated its Xbox Live code of conduct policy to allow gamers to use sexual orientation identifiers like lesbian, gay, bi and transgender in their Gamertags and profiles--an about-face that prompted many LGBT gamers to conclude that the days of being banned for calling themselves "THCxGaymer" (or something similar) were behind them.

Unfortunately, those days are still ahead for LGBT gamers--if recent reports that 26-year-old Josh Moore was booted from the service for mentioning in his profile that he lives in Fort Gay, W.V., are any indication.

The strangest part of this peculiar story: According to the Associated Press, when Fort Gay's mayor, David Thompson, got involved he was told by someone at Microsoft that "the veracity of the city's name didn't matter, and that the word 'gay' was inappropriate regardless."

Although Stephen Toulouse, program manager for policy and enforcement on Xbox Live, acknowledges that the suspension was a mistake, he has yet to say how his team at the Redmond, Wash.-based company will avoid such mistakes in the future.

3 comments:

Yep, it's a real place, Justin! As funny as it is, it's sooooo sad that Microsoft's people let it get to the point it did. When in the hell are they going to deal with these kinds of situations properly?!?

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Yep, I'm gay. And I like video games. Old Japanese games and systems are my favorites--the Famicom, PC Engine, original PlayStation and GameBoy, especially--but I like plenty of newer ones, too. If you have similar interests and you don't mind perusing a blog that's got the word gay in its name and is practically slathered in pink, you'll probably enjoy your time here. I'm also on Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, by the way. Oh, and my Switch Friend Code = SW-5852-5514-6897.